Текст книги "End Game"

Автор книги: Dale Brown

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“Starship, what the hell are you doing?” yelled Eyes.

“Taking out the submarines.”

“Belay that– stop! I haven’t given you the order. Hold your fire.”

“You just said go ahead.”

“I wasn’t telling you to attack. I thought you wanted to talk to me. We need authorization from the captain.”

“I don’t have it?”

“Negative, negative. Hold your fire.”

“Roger that. Holding fire.”

Starship circled the Werewolf farther from the submarines. The first craft had disappeared. The other two were moving to the north.

He knew he’d asked, and he knew what he’d heard. The stinking Navy could never make up its mind.

No, it was just Eyes.

“What’s your situation, Airforce?” asked Storm, coming on the line.

“Captain, the radar platform has been destroyed by a commando attack. There are three submarines to the north.

I fired on one thinking I had been ordered to do so.”

“What are the others doing?”

“Moving to the north.”

“Our intention is to seize the submarines. See if you can keep them on the surface.”

“I’ll try, sir. But it’s possible my gunfire will sink them.”

“Do your best, Airforce.”

“Aye aye, Captain.”

STORM’S UNIFORM WAS SOAKED FROM THE BLAST AND HE’D

cut his face and hands. Two other men had been hurt; one had a severe head wound and was in serious condition in sickbay.

The blast started a very small leak above the belt line of the ship. The damage had already been repaired, and only a small amount of water had gotten in.

Storm wanted to launch an immediate counterattack on 336

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the Indian carrier—he wanted to show the bastards what happened when you attacked a U.S. Navy ship. But they were out of range for the Harpoons.

That could be fixed.

“Eyes, we’re going south,” he said over the intraship com system. “Where is that Indian aircraft carrier?”

“Storm, we have to stay in range of the Chinese carrier’s aircraft, to back up the Dreamland people.”

“I know what my damn orders are, Commander.” Storm’s head began to pound. His anger was flaring. This is what happens when you’re a nice guy, he thought. Your subordinates take you for granted.

He would get his way, no matter what. But he had to be careful about it, had to be clever—yes, the way Bastian was clever, always covering his butt and making it seem as if he was in the right.

He’d already been fired on, and feared for the safety of his people.

His head pounded.

And he had a mission—he was supposed to get that submarine.

“We have an operation under way,” Storm told Eyes, gritting his teeth against the pain. “I want to protect my Sharkboat.”

“Should I order them to come back?”

“No—I want that submarine. They’re to get it.”

“Captain, I’d advise calling the mission off.”

“Thank you for your advice, Eyes.” Storm turned to the helmsman. “Take us east. Stay close enough to launch on the Deng’s aircraft if we have to.”

“Heading, Captain?”

“South.” Storm looked down at the holographic display.

The Megafortress had gone inland; there was no more long-range view of the ships and aircraft in the area. He thumbed the display back, found the Shiva’s last known position and gave the heading to Helm.

His headset buzzed.

END GAME

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“Dreamland Whiplash team trying to contact you, Colonel,” said the communications officer. “Looking for a go/no go on the platform.”

“It’s go.” Storm punched into the line. “Is this Freah?”

“Freah.”

“This is Captain Gale aboard the Abner Read. What’s your status?”

“We’re roughly ten minutes from the radar platform,”

said Danny. “I need your approval to proceed.”

Storm checked his impulse, but just barely. He knew he had to think, to consider, not react—but it was damn hard with his head pounding.

“You’re aboard a Megafortress or the Osprey?” he asked.

“Megafortress. The Osprey is three hours behind,” said Danny. “Do you want us to proceed?”

“Damn straight I do.”

“Good. We’re on a low-altitude approach, flying without our long-range radar,” continued the Air Force Whiplash leader. “We don’t believe we’ve been detected. What’s the status of your Sharkboat?”

“I’m going to order them in,” said Storm.

Had he already done that? He couldn’t remember.

Think. Make your decisions in a calm, reasonable manner.

Ten minutes might be too long. The submarines would be under the surface by then, and the Sharkboat lacked the sensors needed to pick it up.

“If the submarines dive, the Sharkboat won’t be able to find them,” Storm said. “We need Piranha to locate them.

Wisconsin was operating them but had to leave the area.”

“Ensign English will take control of the probe,” said Danny. “She’ll find it.”

He couldn’t control every variable. If Freah was willing to take the chance, so was he.

He was more than willing. He wanted that sub.

And he wanted the Indian carrier as well. Which he was going to get.

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DALE BROWN’S DREAMLAND

“Very good, Captain,” said Storm. “Proceed. I’ll let the Sharkboat know you’re on your way. Eyes will liaison in Tac.”

Aboard the Shiva ,

in the northern Arabian Sea

0538

MEMON STARED AT THE SHADOWY SEA, HIS EYES LOSING THEIR

focus. Reports from the first wave of attacks on the Chinese carrier were just coming in. Remembering how overly optimistic the news had been during the last attack, Memon resolved not to believe them. He made his face into a stone mask, impassive.

“First missile has missed. Second missile—we’ve lost contact.”

“Aircraft are attacking the Chinese helicopter—one shot down.”

One of the Chinese escort ships fired back. Two flights of Chinese aircraft had made it past the Indian screening aircraft and were attacking. A flight of Pakistani F-16s was being engaged to the north by shore-based planes.

Admiral Skandar listened impassively to the chatter from the radio and the ship’s intercom systems. “Battle is a struggle against chaos,” he told Memon.

“Enemy missiles launched! On their way!”

Something squeezed Memon’s stomach, and he felt tears stream from his eyes.

Aboard the Wisconsin,

above the northern Arabian Sea

0540

AT FIRST THE PAKISTANI F-16S SHOWED NO INTEREST IN THE

Wisconsin. Mack stayed close to the Megafortress; he was starting to get low on fuel and was more than willing to let END GAME

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the planes go if they didn’t want to tango. But as the F-16s got to within twenty miles, a pair veered in the direction of the EB-52, starting what Mack interpreted as a maneuver to get behind the Megafortress. He swung out to meet them.

The PAF aircraft stayed together, closing quickly. The two groups of planes were rushing toward each other so fast that within thirty seconds they were separated by less than ten miles. Mack, descending from thirty thousand feet, had barely enough time to get his gun ready before the closest aircraft raced into his targeting pipper. He slammed his finger onto the trigger, ripping through the left wing root and into the fuel tanks and engine of the aircraft. He pumped his cannon twice more, catching a bit of the wing as the aircraft rolled downward. Then he tucked left, trying to line up to take the stricken Viper’s wingman. But the other F-16 had veered back northward, and by the time Mack found him, he was too far off to engage.

He banked Hawk One to the east, pushing back closer to Wisconsin. He glanced at the sitrep to find out what had happened to the other F-16s. He found out a lot sooner than he would have hoped—a launch warning sounded; he’d turned almost directly in the path of the second element of PAF fighters.

THE INDIAN MIGS WERE TWENTY MILES BEHIND THE MEGA-fortress, and roughly ten behind Cantor. But rather than closing, the Indians were losing ground. Cantor waited for a minute or so; when the MiGs still didn’t make a move to catch up, he decided to ignore them for the time being. He hiked his speed up, then checked the sitrep to see how Mack was doing.

In the exercise Cantor had mentioned, the four-ship formation broke into two pairs. One group flew parallel but in the opposite direction to the course of its target, while the other continued at a right angle to it. The elements would then launch separate attacks from either the sides or, more often, the rear quarter.

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While there was no perfect solution, the best strategy for the Flighthawks was to avoid going too far from the Megafortress to take the first attack, even if you had a good opportunity to make a kill. Any defensive move by the fighters would leave the robot too far away to take the second element on.

Mack seemed to have avoided the first pitfall, and had gotten himself tangled up with one of the F-16s in the second group. Meanwhile, his wingman was angling to the north, trying for an end run.

Cantor pushed the throttle guide to max power, leaning forward as he tried to get into position to cut it off.

MACK PICKLED FLARES AND FLICKED THE FLIGHTHAWK TO THE

left, rolling out of the way of the American-built Sidewinder AIM-9s fired by the Pakistani fighter. As good as the Sidewinders were, they couldn’t resist the flare, which burned hotter than the Flighthawk’s masked engine heat. By the time the missiles exploded, Mack had leveled off and was looking for a way to get at his antagonist.

The Pak jock was still behind him, trying for another shot. Mack started a turn to the right, hoping to use his superior turning ability to throw the F-16 out in front of him.

Belatedly, he realized that the Viper’s real purpose was to keep him busy while his wingman went for the Wisconsin.

He was committed now; even if he turned back, he’d never catch the other airplane, which was flashing across the top corner of his screen.

“Hawk One to Wisconsin—I let one of those suckers get by.”

“I have him, Mack,” said Cantor, breaking in.

Mack was too busy dealing with the Viper behind him to ask how Cantor had managed to get into position to fight the PAF plane. Refusing to get into a turning battle with the Flighthawk, the F-16 fired another Sidewinder and swung back in the Wisconsin’s direction. Mack went for his flares again, rolling out and changing course in time to get a shot END GAME

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on the F-16’s tailpipe. But the Viper pilot managed to jerk out of the way, and Mack found himself too high and fast to fire again.

CANTOR SAW THE MISSILE FLARE UNDER THE F-16’S WING

just as he got the cue to fire from the computer. He laid into the Viper, signing his name in the left wing and tailplane.

The canopy flew off, and the pilot quickly followed, projected upward by the ACES II ejection seat—but not before another missile flew out toward the Megafortress three miles ahead.

“Missiles!” yelled Cantor. “Sidewinders! Watch it!”

“We’re on it,” replied Dog calmly.

Cantor felt the Megafortress jerk hard to the right. He saw the aircraft in his screen, a shower of flares erupting from her belly. The Wisconsin pushed hard to the left; Cantor saw the Sidewinder that had been fired at it explode about three-quarters of a mile beyond the plane, too far away to do any damage.

“Hawk One is clear,” said Mack.

“Two clear,” said Cantor. “Wisconsin, your tail is clean.”

“Thank you, Hawks One and Two.”

“Thanks for the assist, Cantor,” said Mack.

“You’re welcome.”

“That second element cut back quicker than I thought they would,” Mack said. “Better get Zen to change the programming on that simulation.”

Cantor smirked—but only to himself. “I will, Major.

Consider it done.”

Aboard the Abner Read , in the northern Arabian Sea

0540

STARSHIP SKIPPED THE WEREWOLF TOWARD THE TWO SUBmarines, which were moving at three or four knots north-

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ward. Stopping them without sinking them was going to be tricky, if not impossible. Obviously, the Hellfire was not the weapon to use—he switched to the light machine guns, which were locked to fire in line with the Werewolf’s nose.

The aiming cue showed he was high; he angled down accordingly and sent two rows of shells across the bow of the sub.

The vessel, continuing on, gave no sign that it was impressed. Starship let off on his trigger and flew toward the craft, buzzing within ten feet of its topside. He could see two men diving into the craft’s conning tower as he passed; they went in the side, as if it were a speedboat rather than a submarine. By the time he spun around it had started to dive under the water. It moved forward, gliding down a long, gentle escalator. Starship aimed for the tail of the sub this time, firing his bullets into the water directly behind the disappearing body. When that didn’t stop the boat, he fired a long burst at the rapidly disappearing conning tower.

Then he got another idea.

He switched over to the Hellfires and zeroed in on the water about fifty yards ahead of the submarine. Then he fired, hoping the missile would act something like a depth charge, damaging the submarine just enough to bring her back to the surface.

If the missile had any effect—if it even exploded—he couldn’t tell.

Starship turned his attention to the other submarine, which was just disappearing underwater. He laced it with bullets, pouring them into the shadow as it slid down below the waves.

“Both submarines are under the water,” he told Eyes. “I can’t see them anymore.”

“Stand by. We hope to have Piranha on line any minute now. Be alert for the approaching Megafortress.”

END GAME

343

NSC Situation Room,

Washington, D.C.

1940, 14 January

(0540, 15 January, Karachi)

EVERYONE BUT JED JUMPED TO ATTENTION AS THE PRESIDENT

walked into the room.

“No, no,” said Kevin Martindale. “As you were. Keep working. Jed, what’s the situation?”

“We have alerts all across the board. India and Pakistan have fired on each other.” Jed pointed to a screen from a Pentagon launch alert system set up to summarize what the analysts blandly called “launch events.” As predicted, the Indians had reserved their longest range missiles, undoubtedly for use against China if she came to Pakistan’s defense.

“What’s the status of the E-bombs?”

“The Dreamland aircraft with the EEMWBs are on course,” said Jed, gently correcting the President as he pointed to the screen where End Game’s status was updated. “The plot here”—he toggled into a new window—“is from Dreamland Command and gives an approximate location of the bombers. It’s accurate to within a mile.”

“Good.”

Martindale folded his arms and surveyed the rest of the room. Jed had seen the President in many tense situations; always, he was calm and almost detached. But clearly he recognized the tension in the room.

“The technology down here is great,” said Martindale.

He winked at Jed. “But what we really need is a good coffee machine.”

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DALE BROWN’S DREAMLAND

Aboard the Fisher ,

near Dw ¯arka Early Warning Platform 0543

DANNY CLICKED THE CONTROL FOR HIS SMART HELMET’S VIsor, selecting the image from the low-light camera in the Fisher’s nose. The wrecked platform was dead ahead.

Tommy Chu’s voice boomed in his ear. “We’re sixty seconds from drop,” said the Fisher’s pilot. “The Sharkboat is eight miles to the west. The targets are diving. I’m going to drop you approximately five hundred yards ahead of their route calculated by the computer.”

“What happened to Piranha?” Danny asked.

“We haven’t reconnected yet,” said Chu. “Ensign English is working on it. Things are pretty hot down there, Danny.

Are you sure you want to go ahead?”

“No doubt in my mind.”

“All right. One of our Flighthawks will orbit to assist if you need it. Thirty seconds.”

“Boston, you ready?” Danny asked his sergeant on the other wing.

“Born ready, Cap. Can’t wait to get in the water. Goin’

stir crazy here. And freezin’ my nuts off.”

Danny switched the screen view to the manpod’s rear camera, figuring that would be the one he’d want to use after the drop. Then he took a long breath, gripped the rails near his head, and closed his eyes.

Aboard the Levitow ,

over northwestern India

0545

FLYING THE MEGAFORTRESS AT HIGH SPEED AND LOW ALTItude was the ultimate thrill ride, the sort of attraction roller coaster designers could only dream about. The scenery north of India’s largest city added to the sensation; exotic END GAME

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rooftops flew by the windscreens, giving way to yellowish fields, then more houses and factory buildings.

Breanna wasn’t interested in the scenery, except as a reference point to make sure she was flying as low as possible.

The thrills she could take or leave, though at the moment she couldn’t live without them.

She hurled the Megafortress forward at 500 knots, counting on her reflexes to keep her out of trouble. They were less than fifty feet above ground level, so close to some of the buildings that if she extended her landing gear she could have scraped off shingles.

“Terrain rising!” warned Stewart.

“Thanks,” said Breanna, even though she was already pulling back. “Levitow to Hawk leader—we’re approaching Omega point.”

“Roger that, Levitow. We’re getting ready to say good-bye right now.”

UNLIKE THEIR MOTHER SHIP, THE FLIGHTHAWKS WERE NOT

shielded against the EEMWB’s electromagnetic waves. To avoid the effects of the blast, Hawk Four would be sent to a rendezvous point south, piloted completely by the onboard component of its C3 flight-control computer. The Megafortress would pick it up on the way back. If for some reason they were unable to return within an hour, C3 would fly the plane westward and ditch in the ocean.

The other aircraft, Hawk Three, would stay with the Levitow until the EEMWBs went off. That would leave the Megafortress temporarily without an escort, but in theory anything nearby would have been zapped out of order anyway.

“Thirty seconds to disconnect,” Dork told Zen.

“Hard to let go, huh?” Zen asked the other pilot.

“You got that, Major.”

Zen kept Hawk Three five miles ahead of the Megafortress, flying at thirty feet. He was so low not simply to avoid detection—the Flighthawk’s radar profile was con-

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DALE BROWN’S DREAMLAND

siderably stealthier than the Megafortress’s—but as a kind of terrain bird dog to alert Breanna to anything unexpected.

“Hawk Four is no longer under my control,” said Dork, sounding a little sad.

Zen leaned forward in his seat, eyes scanning the screen as the ground whipped by.

He’d made the right decision. This was exactly where he needed to be.

Northern Arabian Sea

0548

THE CONCUSSION THREW THE MIDGET SUBMARINE SIDEWAYS.

Sattari lurched against his seat belt, then fell back, suddenly weightless in the small craft.

He waited for a second blast, sure that the aircraft they had seen above would finish them off. He felt his heart pounding at the top of his chest, near his collarbone.

A minute passed, then another. There were no more explosions. Sattari bent his head and uttered a prayer of thanksgiving.

“Captain, we are losing power,” said the submarine’s commander. “We’re losing speed.”

The soft light from the instrument panel turned the man’s face a brownish red; he looked like a demon.

“We will wait, then.”

“If the Parvaneh has been seriously damaged, we may not be able to stay under very long.”

“Let us examine the damage and discover what else we can do. Trust yourself, and Allah.”

“Yes, Captain.”

THE MANPOD HIT THE WATER WITH A TEETH-RATTLING SMACK

and shudder. The nose—where Danny’s feet were—shot downward, then flipped abruptly toward the surface. Danny hung onto the handles near his head, expecting the pod to END GAME

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spin or, worse, flip over. But it did neither. A buzzer sounded in the cabin as the pod’s automated raft system prepared to inflate. He didn’t override, and three seconds later a shrill hiss told him compressed air had filled the bladders at the sides, stabilizing the craft.

The feed from the rear cam showed nothing nearby.

Danny reached to the back of his helmet and cued in the front view. Water lapped the top two-thirds of the screen; he couldn’t see anything else.

Balling his hands into fists, he reached down and pounded the recessed handles above his stomach, blowing the top half of the pod off. He pulled himself upright, punching his visor into its low-light mode.

There was nothing nearby—including the other manpod.

“Boston?”

No answer.

“Boston?”

He was just about to switch back into the Dreamland circuit and make sure that Chu had dropped his sergeant when something broke the water a few yards away.

“Boston?” he yelled.

The figure waved. It had to be Boston, he decided, and reached down to his pants leg to take out the flashlight. He gave a quick flick of light to help the man find his way over, then pulled off his helmet.

“Boston?”

“Yo, Cap,” said the sergeant, grabbing onto the side of the pod. “Had a little trouble. The stabilizer raft didn’t inflate right, and I guess I blew the lid too soon.”

“Where’s your helmet?”

“Bottom of the sea. Lost the laughing gas too. Got my dive gear and weapons, though.” Boston hauled the waterproof sacks up to Danny.

“All right. Let me see where our submarine is,” Danny said, pulling his helmet back on.

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DALE BROWN’S DREAMLAND

Aboard the Abner Read,

in the northern Arabian Sea

0555

STARSHIP STAYED IN AN ORBIT BETWEEN THE SHARKBOAT AND

his last sighting of the submarines.

“Werewolf, the Dreamland team is in the water,” said Eyes. “Approach the area and give them cover.”

“Copy that. I see them. Do you have a location on the submarine?”

“Dreamland Fisher is still working on that.”

Starship sped forward. He saw a dark smudge in the water at about a mile. Thinking it was the Dreamland Whiplash team, he started to slow down, then realized it was one of the commandos’ empty rafts. Tracking north, he found a small missilelike raft nose down in the water—one of the manpods.

“Werewolf has Whiplash manpod in sight,” he told Eyes.

“I’m switching you over to the commander of Sharkboat One. You have a direct line on your channel two.”

Starship gave the commander the GPS coordinates for the manpod. One man clung to the side and the other was in the tiny vessel.

“Stand by for the location of the submarines, via Dreamland Fisher commander,” said Eyes, breaking in.

Northern Arabian Sea

0558

THE GLOBAL POSITIONING CUE IN THE SMART HELMET INDIcated that the submarine was four hundred yards almost directly south. It appeared to have stopped moving, drifting less than twelve feet below the surface.

“Quarter mile,” Danny told Boston. “Just below the surface. Probably trying to lay low until things quiet down.

Let’s paddle as close we can. We’ll skip the laughing gas, do everything else like we drew it up.”

END GAME

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Boston moved to the back of the raft and began kicking.

Danny picked up a paddle. The wind was gentle, but it was in his face, and it took quite an effort to reach the spot where the submarine was. Finally, Danny grabbed the waterproof packs from the inside of the manpod and gave one to Boston. He traded the smart helmet for a dive mask with a light and breather, and pulled on flippers.

“Ready?”

“If you say so,” replied Boston.

Danny took out his survival radio and held it to his face.

“Whiplash to Werewolf and Sharkboat. We’re ready to go below.”

“Sharkboat is fifteen minutes away,” replied the boat’s captain.

“Great. We’ll meet you on the surface.”

“Whiplash, you got a fighter coming at you out of the north. He’s at low altitude and slow.”

“Roger that. We’re in the water,” said Danny, tossing the radio behind him and slipping over the side.

The water was much darker than he had imagined it could be. Even with the light, he couldn’t see more than a few feet away.

Just when he thought he’d swum right by the sub, he spotted a black shadow looming a few yards to his right. A strong kick took him to the side of the vessel. He looked back and saw Boston’s light approaching.

Fearing that any noise outside the submarine might alert the people inside, he stayed off the hull, swimming above the deck to locate the emergency blow device. The sub expert had warned that the device might have been removed, but the door covering it was exactly where he’d seen it on the diagram. He reached gingerly to the panel, running his fingers around it. There were two latches. He slipped them to the sides and pried the panel upward. The large red lever sat inside, exactly as in the brochure advertising the civilian version of the submarine’s safety features.

Not ready to activate the system, Danny turned and 350

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worked his way to the rear of the vessel, looking for the stern planes. Resembling a pair of airplane wings, the planes helped hold the vessel at the proper angle in the water; blowing them would make the submarine bob forward, further disorienting the passengers and making it harder for them to get away if something went wrong. He placed the small packs of explosive, then waited for Boston to put his on the propeller shaft. They pressed the timer buttons almost simultaneously. Then Danny swam back to the rescue device while Boston went to see if there were forward fins.

CAPTAIN SATTARI LISTENED AS THE CREAKS AND TREMORS OF

the great ocean rippled through the submarine, the sounds magnified by fear as much as acoustics.

If Allah permitted, they would stay here all day until the sun set. Then they could surface and repair whatever had caused the engine to fail. If unsuccessful, they would board the raft and head to shore.

It was possible. It would be done.

Sattari heard a loud clunk above him, so close it sounded as if someone had kicked the submarine.

“There may be patrol vessels searching for us,” said the Parvaneh’s commander. “We should be prepared to scuttle.”

Even as Sattari nodded, he found himself hoping it wouldn’t come to that. He wanted to stand before his father and tell him of his great victory.

THE HANDLE REFUSED TO BUDGE. DANNY PUT HIS FEET AS

gingerly as he could on the deck of the submarine and pushed, but still couldn’t get it to turn.

Boston swam up next to him and pointed at his watch.

The charges were set to go off in another sixty seconds.

Danny motioned to him to get near the hatchway, located inside the low-slung conning tower, so he would be ready to throw the grenades inside when the sub surfaced. Glancing at the timer on his watch—forty-eight seconds—he balled END GAME

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his hand into a fist, measuring his aim. As he did, he saw a long plastic knob next to the handle. It looked like a screw-driver, but turned out to be a release for the handle.

Before he could try the handle again, the charges exploded. Small as they were, they rocked the submarine upward. Danny jammed his hand against the lever as the top of the sub smacked him into his face mask. He felt himself propelled upward, as if he were sitting on an underwater volcano. He lost his grip on the handle but grabbed the device door, holding on as the submarine surfaced with a roar.

Aboard the Wisconsin , over India

0610

THERE WERE TIMES WHEN FLYING THE EB-52 WAS LIKE BEING

the engineer on a high-speed train riding on a dedicated rail, with relatively few decisions to make and a predictable program ahead of you.

This wasn’t one of those times.

Dog was being tracked by no less than six different missile batteries. He tried to zigzag between them and still stay on course.

“SA-12s to the right, SA-10s to the left,” said Jazz. “Pick your poison.”

“Tens,” said Dog.

“Flap Lid radar,” said the copilot, telling Dog that the SA-10’s engagement radar had locked onto them. “Breaking. I’m using every ECM we’ve got, Colonel.”

They were roughly seventy miles from the missile site, just outside its maximum reach. But their course was going to take them down to thirty miles from the battery.

“SA-12s are launching!” shouted Jazz. “I don’t think they have a lock.”

Dog immediately changed his course, dodging back to the north, closer to the SA-12 battery—if they were going 352

DALE BROWN’S DREAMLAND

to fire at him anyway, there was no sense getting too close to the SA-10s.

The Russian SA-12—known to its makers as the S-300V—was a versatile missile that came in two different versions, depending on its primary use. The SA-12A—code-named Gladiator by NATO—was a low-to-high altitude missile that could reach targets up to fifteen and a half miles in the sky, with a range of just over forty-five miles. The B version was optimized as an antiballistic missile missile, with a higher altitude and longer range. Both missiles were incredibly fast, in the league of the American Patriot, which could hit Mach 5.

“He’s coming for us, Colonel. Forty miles.”

They had less than a minute to dodge the missile. Dog shoved the Megafortress hard to his left, trying to beam the Grill Pan missile radar.

“Still coming.”

“ECMs,” Dog told Jazz.

“I’m playing every song I know.”

“Chaff. Hang on, tight.” Dog veered down, trying to stay at a right angle to the radar and get the missile to bite on the tinsel.

“We’re clear! We’re clear!” said Jazz.

The missile’s warhead exploded a few thousand feet above them, two miles away. Dog kept the Megafortress level as he tried to sort out where he was relative to his original course. He’d strayed farther south than he wanted; as soon as he corrected, Jazz called out a fresh warning.

“We’re spiked! More SA-12s. The whole battery, looks like. This time they have a lock.”

Northern Arabian Sea

0612

THE PARVANEH SUBMARINE SHOOK WITH THE SHARP THUD OF

multiple explosions. Captain Sattari ripped the seat belt from around his waist and grabbed his AK-47 from the END GAME

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floor. He started to run toward the ladder to the deck above—the charges for the explosives that were sealed in the vessel’s hull were set off from the panel there.

After his third step he heard a loud roar, the sound of an old-fashioned locomotive letting off steam. Then he flew forward, knocked off his feet by the submarine’s sudden and unexpected rise toward the surface.

DANNY WAS THROWN OFF THE SIDE AS THE SUBMARINE POPPED

up. His foot grabbed in the side rail and he slammed against the hull, caught on the deck. He pushed himself back toward the conning tower, half swimming, half stumbling, in the direction of Boston, who was already at the hatch. The submarine twisted, whirling as the waves frothed and steamed.

Danny lurched to his knees and slid into Boston’s back just as the sergeant dropped his tear gas canisters down into the vessel. Catching his balance, Danny gripped the edge of the conning tower. He tossed off his knapsack and unzipped the outer and then the inner skins, exposing the CQWS shotgun.